AES E-Library

AES E-Library

Dithering Strategy Applied to Tinnitus Masking

The hypothesis on the existence of a parasitic quantization, that accompanies hearing loss has been formulated in this work, and then related to other existing theories on causes of Tinnitus. Some preliminary experiments have been carried out, that targeted at verifying the correctness of the proposed interpretation of applied maskers employing dither theory. An effective method of providing a masking signal that uses bone conductivity was derived for the purpose of these experiments. The results of the experiments initially confirm the analogy between the threshold phenomena occurring in the digital audio circuits and ear noises origin. The presented results may induce the elaboration of more effective ear therapies based on high-frequency dither having specially formed spectral characteristics.